


in regards to madness

by antonoelcovi



Series: dasvidaniya, darling [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 3some, Angst, Denial, Friends to Lovers, Language, Love Triangle, M/M, OT3, POV Otabek, Russian, Sequel, Slow Burn, Swearing, Threesome, Unrequited Love, Victuri, Vikturi, Vikturio, Yuri, Yurio, missing moment, otayuri - Freeform, victurio, viktor x yurio, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-23 19:43:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20013766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonoelcovi/pseuds/antonoelcovi
Summary: "Yuri, you're being egoistical.""Beka, Iaman egoist."





	1. Chapter 1

_"Yet another wonderful performance, ladies and gentlemen!_ ”  
  
Too much of his skin glistening in the merciless white of the spotlights, like someone had descended to put a veil of sweat over him for the sake of decency. Only to make it worse though - or _better_ , depending on who’s watching.  
As if he needed to shine any brighter in the eyes of the hungry crowd.

“Skating to the catchy notes of what might well be the most clicked mix of the weeks to come, yet another round of applause for the one and only Russian fairy, gold winner of the GPF, Yuri Plisetsky!”

 _I should have posted that piece online last night_ , then, I regret for a split second before I forget to care. Yuri is still lying down on the ice in his play-dead pose, panting, after I shot him. Metaphorically. My index finger still locked in that very shape, pointing down, mindlessly waiting for another culprit to murder.  
I don’t know what to do with myself, so I stay away from the cones of attention and make the rounds to pick up the remains of Yuri’s improv stripping session. What was he even thinking, I’d ask, but truth is it did the job, so I won’t - to be unforgettable was the whole point, for as much as I’d like to think he doesn’t really need such extreme, flamboyant tricks for the public to notice him.  
Well, he _did_ live up to my request of seeing a whole new Yuri come to life on stage. Definitely.  
Even though I don’t recall having ever talked about the _getting gradually undressed_ part while discussing choreography and details with him the night before.  
Neither did we agree on the outfit itself, in fact. We had picked these clothes together only a few days back, on the same day when I got my new pair of sunglasses - borrowed ( _stolen_ ) by Yuri for the show - and now forever lost to the audience that promptly swallowed them whole, like some tasty treat worth killing for.  
I’ll have him get me new ones eventually. I liked those.

I head for the piece of clothing furthest away from me to work in reverse towards the exit, and hopefully meet Yuri at the changing rooms after the necessary evil of rabid fans and even greedier journalists.  
We exchange an upside-down fleeting glance before he stands up again, the ripped vest trying really hard to do its job but failing miserably.  
I don’t even want to begin to think about the amount of creepy fanmail he must be receiving by old perverts on a daily basis. Something about this thought made my teeth clench hard enough to grind and make me shudder.

When the lights go out before turning back on to their default softer ambience state, I manage to capture a glimpse of blue and pink embracing on the stands and walking away together to the familiar sound of clapping - Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov in their matching clothes. Had they stayed to watch us? Had they cared for Yuri’s performance at all in the first place?  
Would Yuri care to know, now it’s all said and done?

“The hero of Kazhakstan”, the voice of the commentator coming from my left forces my eyes to go from dark to blinding light again, and I squint to our faces on the screen of the device she’s holding, “Otabek Altin! We weren’t expecting to find you on the rink tonight, but given the enchanting spell you two cast upon us, I doubt anyone would complain at such an unannounced surprise. You were both absolutely mesmerising. Were you expecting such positive feedback? No need for modesty, please, you deserve all the attention you’re getting. You’ve suddenly conquered everyone’s agenda for the next months.”  
The blurred image of Yuri surrounded by photographers burns itself onto my retina.  
“No”, there is a reason why my coach begs that I’m kept away from interviewers. The utterly disappointed look on the lady’s face compels me to add, “I also wasn’t expecting to find myself on the rink tonight”, I really dislike it when I am dead serious and people laugh as if it were a joke.  
“That is very funny, Otabek, please tell us more”, no way out of this interrogatory, “Does it mean our fairy hadn’t planned this performance in response to Katsuki’s breath-taking couple act with none other than the former five-times champion, Victor Nikiforov? We love to believe in such magic as fate, but it seemed very unlikely.”  
A few of the paillettes embroidered on Yuri’s jacket crunch between my fingers.  
“He doesn’t appreciate that nickname”, and the reporter did not appreciate my dry response in return, “and neither of us knew what Katsuki’s session entailed precisely. Yuri asked me to join him in his routine literally last night. We didn’t have time to plan ahead enough, so we mostly improvised.”

A blatant lie, of course. I can’t have them know that their golden boy would make his cat skate in a sparkling tutu without a shred of notice if it meant the audience would keep their eyes away from Katsuki Yuuri.  
“Last night, you say. May I be nosy and ask what you were up to? Do you spend a lot of time together? You two seem very close as of late”, _damn the idea of picking his clothes up_ , “might you be set on a quest to snatch the pink spotlight away from our lovey-dovey couple, besides the actual podium, perhaps?”

Actually I am half glad that they did not ask this very question to Yuri, for the self-entitled ice tiger can prove itself unforgiving in the face of those who dare to mention Katsuki’s and Victor’s romantic development.  
Truth be told, the correct answer would indeed be yes. We have been spending quite a bit of time together, be it due to a series of circumstantial coincidences or properly planned encounters, throughout our days in Barcelona. Trying food places, going clothes shopping, checking out famous landmarks, taking selfies upon selfies despite my reluctance. I did not mind all that much, though, at the end of the day. Yuri seemed to be having genuine fun, and to say it as he himself would, this place is in fact very _instagrammable_.  
It goes without saying that someone as devoted to social-networking as him would have answered in purposely vague detail about this or that rendezvous, so to make the interviewer question him further and hopefully forgetful of his sworn rival’s sentimental affairs. Or, at the very least, get sponsored by some store or restaurant we had been at.  
  
Me? I am dissatisfactory by default, and see no point in spreading rumours just for the sake of popularity. It is an ephemeral, double-edged weapon. Not the kind of attention a professional athlete would want to be remembered for.  
“Yuri is a dear friend to me”, the words come out after a pause that meant nothing but mere annoyance, yet the woman deliberately interprets it as the typical hesitation of a culprit caught in flagrante delicto.  
I should have seen that coming.  
“Nothing short of knightly from the Kazakh hero, of course”, I think I saw Yuri wave at me amidst the sea of predators, “Discretion has always been your best quality and our worst enemy, Otabek, but your demeanour throughout the piece spoke for itself, didn’t it? Let’s be honest. Intimately suggestive, to say the least”, someone just took a picture of my pissed off face. “It’s no secret that Yuri likes to play the alluring game.”  
  
And by the time my eyes recover from being blinded by the flash, Yuri magically appears besides me.  
Or rather, _around_ me. His arm around my waist. Not sure how or when he got here.  
And I am also not sure I want to know what he’s trying to communicate with such a hard pinch, but his nails dug into my side so brutally it makes me squirm.  
Everyone notices but I still have zero clue what he meant by it. Sometimes I’m oblivious of my surroundings, he says. I say he’s just expecting too much from others.  
“I was just telling them, Beka”, _why is he speaking in his murderous tone_ , “about the news, _our_ news I mean”, _what on earth is he on about_.  
Another pinch, another hint flying right over my head. Perhaps he’s pushing it a little so to come out of the iciness of his towering throne, to show that he _does_ have friends. I’m pretty sure the audience had guessed as much already, though.  
I try to read the room but all I see is demanding eyes and shapeless people. Yuri is the only one not looking at me directly and he does that when he knows he’s in the wrong. Bad omen.

“We thought our hero to be apprehensive about sharing private matters with the fan base, but might he actually be... just a little bit shy? Seen as you’re so enthusiastically open about it, Yuri, mind telling us more?”, he giggles like a schoolgirl about to make confessions at a sleepover. More flashes, another pinch, more laughter.  
_What in the everloving fuck is going on_.  
“Oh he _can_ be timid”, did he just nuzzle his bare chest against my arm purposely to be caught on camera, “but yes, we _are_ indeed.”  
Shocked open mouths and then there’s me, looking for shooting targets in the dark aiming at random.  
_Oh_ s, _Ah_ s and I’m hoping to be enlightened to no avail.

Then “Dating”, says Yuri.  
“Dating!”, says the reporter.  
“ _Dating_?”, says me, earning the gold medal at the Gran Prix Finale of fools who refused to believe Yuri Plisetsky would go to such illegitimate lengths out of sheer spite for the enemy.  
  
_Dating_.  
At first, the word doesn’t resonate with me and I instinctively think that it must be a joke I’m just too slow to catch on. This whole show had been staged for the sole purpose of making Yuri stand out against Katsuki and I’m not going to act as if I had never known. While some parts of it had been incredibly awkward especially in an improvised context - seriously, he could have at the very least told me he intended to strip, I would have looked less idiotically confused on camera - I was under no illusion that I had been picked to co-star at his side for some special merit. I had been the only one there. I was the obvious choice.  
And I had gladly accepted the consequences, for Yuri. _There is only one answer_ , I remember saying, _we are friends, aren’t we?_ Why would I refuse, after all. Who would ever have the heart to say no to someone like him, I had wondered the night before. Someone heartless, maybe. Someone as motivated as he is, and I definitely am not.  
But, dating? To pretend that we are something that we are not, just to counter-attack them newlyweds and chase after their popularity? Just to be more _intense_ than them? It must be a joke. I must have misunderstood. Yuri is not that desperate to prevail and be noticed. Is he?  
_Is he?_  
  
“That’s amazing news, Yuri, Otabek. We’re ecstatic to be the first to hear about it, however, we can’t help but ask - are you not worried about the popular opinion on this matter? You two are a few years apart, aren’t you? Isn’t that a bit controversial? How serious is this relationship, Yuri? The counter tells us more than two thousand people are with us as we speak. One last declaration for the followers watching you live on Instagram?”  
  
If this were a twist on the classic game of Russian roulette, right now Yuri would be standing in the dark, at the edge of the ice rink where I stood earlier, our roles reversed - the cylinder of his gun spinning - ready to pull the trigger and see if I end up dead this time round.  
He french-kisses me live in front of two thousand people, the clicking of the empty chamber echoes in my head, and this is how I end up tragically, irremediably, _still_ _alive_.


	2. Chapter 2

Everything about riding a motorbike is designed to help you think. That’s what I always thought.  
The never-meeting parallels at either side, the deformed motion of every thing you leave behind, the scenery blurring illegibly before your eyes. The muffled white noises outside, the roaring of the engine inside, the patterns repeating seamlessly in between. Every detail just intense enough to keep you focused, but not enough to disturb your head space. And at the end of the road, at the very least, you’ll have moved forward from point A to B. A well-oiled machine.  
That's what I thought.  
And yet, by the time I reach my point B, I’m none the wiser because of the single factor of interference sitting right behind me.  
Not a single word between us since the cameras had turned off. Not a word as I watched him get changed back into his casual clothes, not a word when he assumed I'd ride him back to the hotel, not a word as he hands me back the spare helmet that has, somehow and without warning, become his. And I let him - impudently.  
  
Under the burnt orange of the lamppost, Yuri’s hair shimmers with all the stubborn glitter particles leftover from the shower he had.  
He's pretending very intently to check his phone to buy time when I decide I've had enough of his games.  
"Do you intend to talk about it, or", _or_ , I know that already. Whatever it might be, it's written all over his face.  
"About?", _did he just play dumb? Seriously?_  
I'm gobsmacked. The cars shooting past inform me that one, two, at least ten seconds have passed before I manage to gather my thoughts again.  
I sigh, he tenses up. _Oh how he hates to be treated like a kid_.  
"About involving people in your mad ideas without their consent, or any warning, for the matter?", rhetorically, of course. He should know this isn't right, he should. I wonder if anyone else ever bothered to teach him. Perhaps Nikiforov tried before me.  
The railing behind him squeaks lightly under the pressure of his dewdweight, head hanging back loosely to a sky promising rain. He looks like a bored swan.  
Five cars and not a word.  
Then, "Is it that bad?", the clouds, the stars beyond them and whatever God there might be even further, they all ignore us and our mundane tribulations. The world keeps spinning and we don’t make any more sense than weather phenomenons.  
Another five cars before I realise he never intended to elaborate further. I've counted ten before it starts to drizzle and the swan finally graces me with an eye-to-eye confrontation.  
"Is it?", his voice going from pugnacious to stridulous in the span of two words, "That they believe we're dating? Aren't we together all the time anyway?"  
  
The question sounds so surreal to me that my very first reaction is to chuckle and look away. I didn't mean it as an offense, far from it, but Yuri predictably takes it that way and goes all red, inside and out. I don't have the time to take a defensive stance, that he's a mere breath away from me. Again.  
"What? Is it that ridiculous", for a moment there I thought he'd slap me in the face, "I bet they already think we're a couple anyway, so what's the matter with that?" his hand going crazy, slashing the air and rain like claws.  
I'd like to say I've never seen him this outraged before, but I have. Being outraged by something or someone is basically Yuri's default emotional state.  
"They who", I deflect. I was once told, by an instructor back in Canada, that I am good at deflecting missteps and make them look like deliberate coreography. My instinctive thought was: _I wouldn't need to deflect anything if I were good enough in the first place_.  
I don't give him time to take a defensive stance either.  
"Your followers on Instagram?", I wonder how many queries I must have earned after the live video, only for them to be denied by the privacy lock on my account, "No, you mean Victor and Katsuki, don't you."  
  
This is when in the movies they say that it can't get any worse and then it starts raining. Harder.  
By the time Yuri decides it's ok to talk to me again, we're both drenched to the bone.  
" _You know I don't want to hear about it_ ", judging from the acute angle of his shoulders and how deep his fists dig into his pockets, it must have taken him a lot of effort to even answer at all instead of dismissing me altogether.  
"I never understood why. Isn't Victor an old friend, and a mentor? Weren't you guys on the same team even? Why are you so obsessed with competing with his student? You are both excellent athletes. Rivalry is one thing, but this is unhealthy. It makes you behave not like yourself.”  
  
At first I can't tell, because of the rain streaming down his face, and hair, and clothes. It's the violent shudder that gives me the hint and makes me look harder, and my heart sink into itself, and my hands instinctively reach for his shoulders. I change my mind halfway and place my jacket over his head, too slow and too late. Yuri doesn't add anything and I don't either, because the words escape me when things like this happen.  
My default solution is the first I learnt some time ago, when I had the audacity to believe that two world-class skaters are still just two human beings and are allowed to share a drink together without further implications. And maybe, back then, it was true - despite the pictures of us running off on my motorbike plastered all over the internet.  
Today we can't, a café would be too exposed and people may notice and weave gossip that would result in worse problems. So it has to be a club, the same again. The same I had gotten angry at him for having tried to enter two years too early.  
I am normally more coherent than this.

The bouncer remembers me and doesn't ask about Yuri. The second best option after a tea in a quiet place is a coke in a noisy place. The sofas in the staff room are dinky and uncomfortable but at least we're out of the rain.  
"A coke", Yuri is predictably not impressed and irritated, I don't need to see his face to know he's frowning.  
"You're sixteen", which had the potential, in theory, to make me the cool older friend that sneaks you into clubs and buys you drinks, but I'm only the boring friend who tells you off and accidentally hurts you.  
Yuri shrugs and sighs. I add, "I didn't mean to make you cry."  
And I don't need to see his face to know he's red again.  
Half a pint of coke to buy time and patience, _patience_.  
"You don't have to tell me about it. But you lied about us and kissed me in front of the cameras and I'd like to know why."  
It's hard to catch all the little gestures in such dim light so I lower my head and he raises his in return, mirroring me. He looks so pained and lost that it almost makes me give into impatience and ask him again. _What have they ever done to you, to make you cry upon mere mentioning of their names_.  
I can't tell for certain, but I'd swear his eyes are focused on something - or someone - beyond me, as if I were see-through.  
  
"Is it that bad?", Yuri is like a kid that won't give up on a question until it's been satisfied, "that they think we're dating?"  
  
I remember the day I met Yuri Plisetsky with the typical vividness of memories that are revisited over and over. It was five years ago, roughly, my first year in the junior division at Yakov Feltsman’s studio, in St. Petersburg. And it was the height of summer.  
At first I had thought him to be a little girl, with the sharp haircut, graceful figure and me being ignorant of how Russians use girly nicknames affectionately. He was very small as well, enough to make me feel even more of an idiot for being in the same class as younger boys. At the exercise bar, stretching one leg at a time in front of the window in his ballet shoes, eyes that I later described to him as those of a soldier. If I were able to, I could paint this picture in precise detail by heart. I don't know why or how it managed to stay so clear and alive in my mind all these years.  
In fear of falling under the much darker circumstances of envy, I remember keeping my admiration for him to myself as an ineffable secret. We never even exchanged a single word, him in his golden glory above, and me down below, among the mediocres.  
Still, transfixed.  
The fact that I've always been attracted to Yuri Plisetsky is almost collateral here, not pertinent - the only reason why I am retracing that memory right now is that sometimes opportunity presents itself to you in unexpected, sudden forms and you don't recognise it even if you look your hardest. I didn't recognise it back then, young and stubborn as I was, and I am afraid I don't recognise it now. Yuri had always been gazing back at me, and that must have meant something, ranging from disgust to curiosity and passing via many shades of _oh but what if he likes me back too_.  
  
The knot in between my eyebrows tightens and I need a moment to walk the minefield that is the innumerable quantity of chances I have to make him cry again.  
"It is bad", his breathing interrupts, "that you told a lie about us without at least consulting me first."  
His breathing resumes and my jacket slides off his shoulders, as if they were deflating. The second half of his coke goes in slo-mo, and I can't shake the feeling that he's doing it on purpose to keep me on edge as a form of punishment for the rebellion, for the alcoholic-free drink, for mentioning those two, for the questions.  
The glass clinks against the table, the ice at the bottom of it cracks. From the main hall of the club, the music drops and the only survivor noise is the echo of the chamber in my head, spinning.  
Until he pulls the trigger and speaks.  
  
" _But if we started dating for real, then it would not be a lie._ "  
  
And this is when I realise that one chance out of six to survive at every shot might be worth the risk after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Special thanks to ShyCamellia, fantasticdiangelo, kraykraykat55 and Eleonorapoe for reviewing my work!_  
>  And to all those who supported me with kudos and more both on this website and elsewhere, as well.  
> I hope you will like this second chapter, too. See you soon again! 
> 
> _Love, Anto._

**Author's Note:**

> _About three years have passed since the publication of my most popular work to date, "In regards to hate" - many had asked, back in the day, if I would ever consider writing a sequel. After so long, here we go! I wonder if any of my original readers will come back to read it. I sure hope so.  
>  This is to you, for believing in me back then!_
> 
> _Love, Anto._


End file.
